


Smiling Sunshine Boy

by Rae_of_Weeb



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-25 23:53:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18173102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae_of_Weeb/pseuds/Rae_of_Weeb
Summary: He was not enough. Adrien was not the smiling sunshine boy. He was not perfect. All he can do is smile and pretend.





	Smiling Sunshine Boy

He knew his father was not proud of him. There was no pleasing him. No matter how well he did at school, no matter how many awards he received from fencing competitions, no matter how much judges praised him after his piano performances- he would never be enough.

 

He would never forget the time he won first place in a national piano competition. It should have been a thrilling moment for him but all it did was cause more pain. He had spent months working on that piece. His fingers felt numb playing into the late hours of the night, notes blurring as his eyes refused to focus on the black spots dotting his page. His butt was sore and back throbbing from sitting for so long. Adrien played on until his body and mind failed him, desperate for a recovery from the abuse he put it through. When the competition came, he played the best he ever had. He played the best he could. It was the best he could do. Everyone thought it was the great. Yet the only comments his father made was that he should have tuned the piano better before playing. He should have taken his time more on the slow section and drawn out his rallentandos more. He should have crescendoed more slowly. Everything he should have, but failed to do. Not a word of praise or even a pat on the back. His performance was not perfect so it was not enough. He was not perfect so he was not enough.

 

He wanted to give up that night. Give everything up. He felt his motivation to please his father slip away. He felt his motivation to work hard drift off into the wind. He felt his motivation to do anything at all, to feel, to love, to want, to exist- all fade away. Yet he kept smiling as tears spilled away from his eyes.

 

“I am okay. I can do this. I am fine. I am happy” became his mantra. He said it in the shower (while the worst came out). He said it going to bed (while crying to sleep). He especially said it anywhere anyone could see him (lest someone think something might be wrong with him). His smile became a symbol for his happiness. He felt his lips draw upwards and showed it off to everyone who could see him. His happiness façade shined brightly to others. He was the sunshine boy with the pretty smile. Everything was perfect for the straight-A prodigy. 

 

His hair started to fall out more and more. At first it was just a few pieces but soon whole clumps came out. His scalp burned and itched while snowflakes erupted from his head every time he scratched it. He was told by doctors it was psoriasis. He was told by his father that he was lying and exaggerating. Who cares if his head is covered white clumps over a scary red? Who cares if he literally wants to scream from the itchiness and pain it causes him? Who cares if he starts scratching his thighs until his fingers turn bloody if only to stop himself from scratching his own head? He must be exaggerating and doing it for attention. He was foolish. Useless. Pathetic. How could you have so many problems? It probably doesn’t even hurt. I don’t see anything there. Quit doing that, you’re being ridiculous. 

 

He was hurting and he was only being scolded for it. The most worry his father had was for what other people would think. And of course for his modeling career. He was nothing but a face to parade around, another symbol in his father’s life.

 

Sometimes it feels like his father was only in love with the idea of him. The few times his father said he loves him only serve to cut a deeper hole in his heart. His father loves the model that makes his clothes sell well and the compliments about his beautiful, talented, gifted, glorious son. The son everyone envisions him to have. Not the actual son he has. The symbol who was perfect but the actual meaning lost. Father loves the sunshine boy. There is not enough love for him to give if having to choose between sunshine boy and Adrien so he chooses the perfect boy when he says those words. Adrien doesn’t get those words of love from his father. Adrien doesn’t deserve to hear those words from his father. Only the perfect sunshine boy. He’s not even sure his father loves that boy though, so what’s his luck?

 

A symbol is merely something meant to represent something. He wishes he could kill symbols. The smile symbol. The sunshine boy symbol. The smiling sunshine boy symbol. Yet there is nothing left for him to do but to smile on and act like the sunshine boy. He feels nothing yet cries whenever he is alone. It’s silly for him to cry though, he should be happy since he is the smiling sunshine boy. But there he is. The boy whose best couldn’t even tune a piano properly. The boy whose scalp oozes red and flakes white snow. The disgusting, imperfect, sad boy. He can pretend to be smiling sunshine yet he can never be the boy he acts as. Symbols can never be the real thing so the other way must be true, right?

**Author's Note:**

> some cringey emo angsty teen stuff but i just :/
> 
>  
> 
> i am literally cringing so hard at this pls dont roast me (too hard).  
> maybe some of you can relate?


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